I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for sending information in a wireless communication network.
II. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A base station may transmit unicast data to individual UEs and/or broadcast data to multiple UEs. The base station may also transmit a reference signal (or pilot) and control information to the UEs to support communication with the base station. The reference signal and control information, although useful, represent overhead that consumes a portion of the available radio resources. It is desirable to reduce overhead due to the reference signal and control information, to the extent possible, in order to improve network capacity.